Tuesday newspaper round-up: Bonds, Shell, bookmaker levy, farm boost

Royal Dutch Shell is facing questions over an important plank of its $30bn asset disposal programme as an acrimonious boardroom clash complicates its planned exit from a refining partnership in Japan. The Anglo-Dutch oil group agreed last year to sell its 33 per cent stake in Showa Shell for ¥169bn ($1.6bn) to Idemitsu Kosan as part of efforts to reduce debt and streamline operations after its £35bn takeover of BG Group. - Financial Times

Bookmakers look set to be hit by an extra £30 million bill after the government decided to impose a levy of 10 per cent of their gross profits from horse racing from both betting shops and online betting. In a letter to betting industry and horse racing bodies seen by The Times, Tracey Crouch, the sports minister, said that the new fee, designed to replace the Horserace Betting Levy that has funded racing for more than half a century, would be introduced from April next year.

US companies with almost $600bn of investments in the UK are reviewing their plans for expansion in the UK amid concerns over its post-Brexit access to the EU’s single market, the largest US business group has warned. The US Chamber of Commerce, in a document due to be presented to the UK’s Cabinet Office this week, warns that a post-Brexit UK would need “unfettered access” to the European market in goods and services to retain and attract US investments. - Financial Times

Leaving the European Union will save Britons from paying the price of the European Union’s costly agricultural policy, according to a paper that flies in the face of multiple warnings that Brexit will push up food prices. Freeing farms of the EU’s overly zealous regulation of pesticides will prevent agricultural yields from plunging as the common agricultural policy veers towards organic production, according to a paper for the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-wing think tank. - The Times

Britain’s self-employed workers are earning less than they did 20 years ago, according to data that expose the low incomes of many people in this growing part of the workforce. According to the Resolution Foundation think-tank, the official data show that the typical weekly earnings of a self-employed worker in 2014/15 were about £240 a week. After adjusting for inflation, that is less than in 1994/95, as far back as the data go. - Financial Times

Passengers on Southern railway face another three days of heightened travel disruption after the second in a series of 72-hour strikes by conductors started on Tuesday morning. The RMT insisted its action would be solid, although Southern’s operators, Govia Thameslink Railway, which is in turn owned by Go-Ahead Group, claimed that more than in one in four conductors had turned up for work during the strike last week. - Guardian

The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia has said he is concerned that workers and businesses could become too accustomed to record low inflation, making it harder for it to rise again to healthy levels. Philip Lowe said he was eagerly awaiting next week’s quarterly inflation figures because they would influence inflation expectations. - Guardian

ExxonMobil has made a formal request to overturn a court order that would force it to hand over thousands of internal documents linked to claims that it may have misled investors over the risks posed by climate change. The American oil company asked a federal court in Forth Worth, Texas, yesterday to reject the climate subpoena from New York State. - The Times